DISNEYLAND...AGAIN?

Yep...again! I have a friend who has an employee's Silver Pass and when he calls, I'm always up for it. Anyway, this time we decided to concentrate on Frontierland. The land is so big that even with an entire day to spend there we had to pass up a lot.

The first thing to do in Frontierland is to take a ride on the paddle-wheel steamship. The whole boat is a work of art.

Past the heavy traffic area the river is surprisingly intimate and quiet. Surprisingly authentic, too. You'd swear you were in the backwoods of Tennessee or Missouri. The landscapers did such a good job that when you come across examples of human habitation like an Indian village they seem a little jarring and out of place.

As the ship approaches civilization again we begin to see artifacts of human habitation: Narrow gauge railroad tracks (above) and a pier. The tracks are decorative but they'd work great for a small, real-world, suburban railroad.

After the steamboat ride we headed for the canoes. This simple ride is one of the most fun things you can do in Frontierland.

Those X%&*@ two cute little girls behind me shoveled at least a gallon of water down my back.

A duck family paddled almost right up to the boat. They seemed to have had no fear of humans.

A quick peek (above) into the nearby Golden Horseshoe Saloon. Wow! Imagine how great it would be to have a local dinner theatre like this!

Next stop: the magesterial Big Thunder Mountain Railroad. If you visit Disneyland don't pass this up. In photos it looks like other theme-related small rollercoasters you've seen and you figure you can safely pass it up.  N-O-T   T-R-U-E!!!!!!! The ride is absolutely unique and is not to be missed...even if you have to stand in line with crying children for an hour to ride it.

The ride should really be in Tomorrowland. It's the urban transportation of the future, not the past. Ride it and you'll glimpse the dazzling world of 2040 when the concept of a City of the Young will hopefully have taken hold.

What the ride has to offer isn't visible in pictures, it isn't even visible to people in the park who watch it without riding it. It's the Art of Experience which may turn out to be the primary artform of this emerging century. The ride combines motion with carefully controlled 3D spatial awareness and sound. You'll have to ride it to know what I'm talking about. It incorporates advances in psychology as well as engineering. I'd like to know the name of the genius who thought of this.

RE-THINKING TOMORROWLAND (EXPANDED)

Of all the possible futures envisioned by architects the one that appeals to me most is the one in which the world has been reforested. It would be a high tech world with all the modern innovations, but one in which nature would never be far from our front door.

Utopians disagree about the nature of this urban forest. Lots of people want to see concrete skyscrapers sticking out of tended gardens a little like the one above. That's not a bad way to go, and it would be a big improvement over what we have now, but I'd like to see some towns try a different look.

 My own taste is for a mixture of tended gardens and of primeval, wild, old-growth, urban forest. I don't mind pushing aside branches every once in a while. It's probably a wildly impractical idea, but I wouldn't mind being one of the people who try it.

These towns would be home to free-roaming wild animals.

Don't ask me how that could be made to work. Figuring out the "how" is somebody else's job.

What would the houses and sidewalks look like in such a town? Maybe something Arthur Rackhamish, like this (above).

This (above), by the way, is one of my all-time favorite landscape photos. It's a thought-provoking picture that really is worth a thousand words. You might want to enlarge it.

 Rackham's illustrations show a fondness for wild, scraggy forests.

Most artists favor the sentimental Romantic forest (above) where trees look cute, like something out of a Disney film. Not so for Arthur Rackam.

Rackham took forests as he found them. They're not easy to traverse, and they don't exist for our sake; in fact, it's not at all clear how man fits into them. They're a mystery, an enigma, a place where gnomes and mythological creatures might be plausible..

I think about things like that when I'm in the treehouse at Disneyland. Now that would be a great house to live in, but it would require a colossal old growth tree and there aren't many of those these days.

Here's a more modest ground-level house, surrounded by wild, stringy foliage. It still has the Rackham touch.

Of course this Utopian town requires creeks and rivers that would be well-stocked with fish.

Kids' walk to school would take them through beautiful caves.

Uh-oh. It's a traffic jam (above). Roads in the town are narrow and nature is always close by. I don't envision cars covered with moss like the one in the foreground, but I like the idea of narrow streets in the verdant jungle. I like the idea of leafy tunnels.

Most people would find it easier to use public transportation instead. Within the town that would be provided by miles-long roller coasters (above) that wind their way up and down through the forest.

Maybe the Disney people should build a green town like this in Tomorrowland. After all,  we're all headed for a green future.

My ideal town would contain several rope bridges.

Maybe a Chinese bridge, too. I don't know if the style would fit in, but what the heck.

Would the town have an airport? Yes, a small one. Something very high tech. The idea is to cobine very high tech with very low tech.

With stewardesses, too!

IF ARTISTS DESIGNED CITIES

I'm not a fan of the mega city concept, where one architect designs the look of an entire city. That unified look is great for sci-fi movies (above), but most of us want the city we're actually going to live in to have more diversity. I like cities where each division has its own flavor, each section has its own story to tell.



Architects aren't sympathetic to any of this. They believe in the one-size-fits-all philosophy where the solution to every problem is simplistic, bold shapes.  I hate stuff like that.

Architects are clueless about what people really want.

A lot of what they're building today (above) will be the crime-ridden, concrete slums of tomorrow.

There's plenty of examples of good, vintage architecture out there, but you can't get architects to pay attention to it. Maybe it's time to give artists a turn at bat.  They can't do worse than what's around now. 

These days artists are steeped in graphic novels which are always depicting the dark side of things.  If artists designed a city they'd probably go for something funereal, like Gotham City in the "Batman" movie.

Such a city is bound to attract a criminal element.  Rather than leave their housing to chance, artists should build it (above) for them. Maybe something by H. R. Giger. 

Maybe thugs would feel at home in this environment, and not be tempted to venture out looking for victims.

Giger fantasizes about making murals out of human remains. (above). criminals should love that.

If the city is going to have a modern design, let's try something really drastic (above). Imagine going down that staircase on the upper left.  The steep angle would take your breath away, and descending would be difficult and dangerous...but it sure would be fun! 

Maybe a city of raised platforms half a mile in the air would make for a stimulating walk.

Maybe we need to flood the streets the way Venice is flooded. Wouldn't it be fun to take a boat to work?

Here's (above) a little Lego city that Norman Mailer built years ago, and which still stands somewhere. Each Lego block represents an apartment. Mailer said philosophers would live on the top, call girls would live in the white blocks, and corporate executives in the black ones.

Here's an idea (above) for giving Manhattan a kind of colorful, kid's playroom look.

Here's (above) a goth city where half the population is Christian and requires a lot of churches, and the other half are irreverent satanists who delight in building churches upside-down.

A city which is divided like that will naturally be pretty tense. To distract the population from their differences I suggest a diversion, perhaps a race of genetically modified giants who will walk around and randomly intimidate people.  

If the giants get out of hand, the city's water monsters will be unleashed. Water monsters eat giants. 

Here's (above) a possible layout for a New York City.  The buildings would be crammed together...really packed. Every window would be butted up to some window in the next building. if you want to live here you better be the kind of person who gets along with your neighbors.